#edcmooc

It's certainly been a while now since the last entry was published.

But this blog is not abandoned. Many things happen in real life that keeps this planet away from gravitating at least for a while. But here we are again. 

Many of you are aware that we are experiencing a MOOC's boom moment. For those who have not yet been captivated by a MOOC, it stands for Massive Open Online Course.
Remember that old post about e-learning? Well, a MOOC perfectly fits e-earning's definition at its best. And be aware that there is now a good bunch of them out there now. Universe expanding itself!

May these lines serve as an introductory for one particular course: E-learning and Digital Cultures, #edcmooc for friends that has just been launched at Coursera, one of the pioneers in the MOOC's territory conquest.

elearning

Let's consider some factors of modern life:

- we have a hectic day-to-day. Stress, if you want to call it that way. The lack of relax time and constant "on the loop" attitude.
- people are becoming more interconnected thanks to smartphones, tablets, and several other devices product of the new technologies.

So, with the above in mind, the big question has to be: Is there any time left to attend a traditional class?. Meaning: time to commute from home/workplace to the educational institution where the classes take place. And sub-question: are we willing to adjust our schedule to that of the class?.

Credit: jscreationzs

If the answer to the above questions is no, then elearning enters its way.

Our life is becoming more and more electronically involved. Even learning is adopting this form through a long list of web-based methodologies. Not only universities which are holding virtual classrooms exclusively online, but even old universities are eventually using the internet platform as a complement to traditional teaching techniques. Of course, you can replace the word 'university' for other educational institutions like schools or academies and the result will be the same.
 
Initially, this entry was going to be similar to the home office post from a while ago, since the parallelisms are pretty clear: take ahead an activity with the rest of the group at an specific (external) site or carry it on individually at home. Name it to study, name it to work. But the pros and cons inherent to this activity were so extremely similar to those of the home office that the idea of repeating a post was quickly dismissed.

Now, a new question arises. Can it be considered elearning the fact that an article found while surfing the net provides you new knowledge? We would say yes. And we dare to include those TV shows which have an educational purpose. You know, the ones that help you learn languages or, hey, why not? the ones about cooking!. Seriously, you end up learning how to cook some amazing plate just as if you'd attended a gourmet course.